Å›rÄ«-rÄjovÄca
kathito vamÅ›a-vistÄro
bhavatÄ soma-sÅ«ryayoḥ
rÄjñÄá¹ cobhaya-vamÅ›yÄnÄá¹
caritaá¹ paramÄdbhutam

1 times this text was mentioned in purports to other texts: CC(1)

 Å›rÄ«-rÄjÄ uvÄca - King ParÄ«ká¹£it said; kathitaḥ - has already been described; vamÅ›a-vistÄraḥ - a broad description of the dynasties; bhavatÄ - by Your Lordship; soma-sÅ«ryayoḥ - of the moon-god and the sun-god; rÄjñÄm - of the kings; ca - and; ubhaya - both; vamÅ›yÄnÄm - of the members of the dynasties; caritam - the character; parama - exalted; adbhutam - and wonderful.


Text

King Parīkṣit said: My dear lord, you have elaborately described the dynasties of both the moon-god and the sun-god, with the exalted and wonderful character of their kings.

Purport

At the end of the Ninth Canto, Twenty-fourth Chapter, Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« summarized the activities of Kṛṣṇa. He spoke of how Kṛṣṇa had personally appeared to reduce the burden on the earth, how He had manifested His pastimes as a householder, and how, soon after His birth, He had transferred Himself to His VrajabhÅ«mi-lÄ«lÄ. ParÄ«ká¹£it MahÄrÄja, being naturally a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, wanted to hear more about Lord Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, to encourage Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« to continue speaking about Kṛṣṇa and give further details, he thanked Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« for having described the activities of Kṛṣṇa in brief. Åšukadeva GosvÄmÄ« had said:

jÄto gataḥ pitá¹›-gá¹›hÄd vrajam edhitÄrtho
 hatvÄ ripÅ«n suta-Å›atÄni ká¹›torudÄraḥ
utpÄdya teá¹£u puruá¹£aḥ kratubhiḥ samÄ«je
 ÄtmÄnam Ätma-nigamaá¹ prathayañ janeá¹£u

“The Supreme Personality of Godhead, ÅšrÄ« Kṛṣṇa, known as lÄ«lÄ-puruá¹£ottama, appeared as the son of Vasudeva but immediately left His father’s home and went to Vá¹›ndÄvana to expand His loving relationships with His confidential devotees. In Vá¹›ndÄvana the Lord killed many demons, and afterward He returned to DvÄrakÄ, where according to Vedic principles He married many wives who were the best of women, begot through them hundreds of sons, and performed sacrifices for His own worship to establish the principles of householder life.†(BhÄg. 9.24.66)

The Yadu dynasty belonged to the family descending from Soma, the moon-god. Although the planetary systems are so arranged that the sun comes first, before the moon, ParÄ«ká¹£it MahÄrÄja gave more respect to the dynasty of the moon-god, the soma-vaá¹Å›a, because in the YÄdava dynasty, descending from the moon, Kṛṣṇa had appeared. There are two different ká¹£atriya families of the royal order, one descending from the king of the moon planet and the other descending from the king of the sun. When the Supreme Personality of Godhead appears, He generally appears in a ká¹£atriya family because He comes to establish religious principles and the life of righteousness. According to the Vedic system, the ká¹£atriya family is the protector of the human race. When the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared as Lord RÄmacandra, He appeared in the sÅ«rya-vaá¹Å›a, the family descending from the sun-god, and when He appeared as Lord Kṛṣṇa, He did so in the Yadu dynasty, or yadu-vaá¹Å›a, whose descent was from the moon-god. In the Ninth Canto, Twenty-fourth Chapter, of ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam, there is a long list of the kings of the yadu-vaá¹Å›a. All the kings in both the soma-vaá¹Å›a and sÅ«rya-vaá¹Å›a were great and powerful, and MahÄrÄja ParÄ«ká¹£it praised them very highly (rÄjñÄá¹ cobhaya-vaá¹Å›yÄnÄá¹ caritaá¹ paramÄdbhutam). Nonetheless, he wanted to hear more about the soma-vaá¹Å›a because that was the dynasty in which Kṛṣṇa had appeared.

The supreme abode of the Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is described in Brahma-saá¹hitÄ as the abode of cintÄmaṇi: cintÄmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vá¹›ká¹£a-laká¹£Ävá¹›teá¹£u surabhÄ«r abhipÄlayantam. The Vá¹›ndÄvana-dhÄma on this earth is a replica of that same abode. As stated in Bhagavad-gÄ«tÄ (8.20), in the spiritual sky there is another, eternal nature, transcendental to manifested and unmanifested matter. The manifested world can be seen in the form of many stars and planets such as the sun and moon, but beyond this is the unmanifested, which is imperceptible to those who are embodied. And beyond this unmanifested matter is the spiritual kingdom, which is described in Bhagavad-gÄ«tÄ as supreme and eternal. That kingdom is never annihilated. Although material nature is subject to repeated creation and annihilation, that spiritual nature remains as it is eternally. In the Tenth Canto of ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam, that spiritual nature, the spiritual world, is described as Vá¹›ndÄvana, Goloka Vá¹›ndÄvana or Vraja-dhÄma. The elaborate description of the above-mentioned Å›loka from the Ninth Canto — jÄto gataḥ pitá¹›-gá¹›hÄd (BhÄg. 9.24.66) — will be found here, in the Tenth Canto.